At home with Jade Robran
Step inside the beautiful family home of Adelaide personality Jade Robran. Jade opens up about the highs and lows of life in the media.
Jade Robran is best known for her high-profile media roles including time as FIVEAA’s afternoons announcer, and as a television entertainment reporter and sports journalist.
But this savvy mum of two has also been quietly building a very successful hustle on the side – flipping houses.
Over the past decade Jade has transformed six houses, including one in Melbourne, with each project reflecting not just her stylish interior know-how, but her ability to manage the entire process – from visualising floor plans to formulating budgets, getting the right trades in place and setting a realistic time frame.
“I mean I feel like I know what I’m doing,” Jade says.
“I probably like to throw myself in the deep end a bit but I’ve been buying, selling and renovating homes for about 12 years.
“I’ve just got a mind that goes a million miles an hour, and I just get it done. People think I’m absolutely mad, but I just love it. I love styling, I love fashion, I like playing around with interior ideas, and all those things go hand in hand.”
Jade’s foray into real estate has the support of her husband Ben Williams, who shot to fame in 2001 as the first winner of the Big Brother reality TV series.
These days, Ben is one of Australia’s most successful AFL players’ agents, representing some of the biggest names in Australian rules football through his sports management company, Player’s Ink Sports & Media.
Jade also helps run the company and the couple’s high-profile signings include Port Adelaide’s Connor Rozee and Jason Horne-Francis and St Kilda’s Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, who was the first player to be signed to a $2 million deal.
Jade and Ben are very protective over their young footy cohorts, forming close relationships with both them and their families.
“We’ve known these boys since they were 16,” Jade says. “Our house is often filled with players and I’m making big bowls of spaghetti bolognese for them and their families. I’m very close to the wives and girlfriends and we love to host people here.”
Luckily, the couple’s beautiful five-bedroom home in the eastern suburbs, where they live with sons Sol, 14, and Harry, 13, has plenty of room for guests, including a gym and self-contained unit in the backyard.
“Our boys are too young to use it now, so we’ve had a couple of players stay when they’ve needed to,” Jade says.
This stunning home is another of Jade’s flipping success stories, turning what was a “dark and dingy rabbit warren” into a light, contemporary, spacious family home.
The couple bought the prime 1200-square-metre property in 2023 with plans to redo the garden and then the house.
But life had other plans. In 2024, their lives were “thrown upside down” when Ben was involved in a serious motorbike accident in the Flinders Ranges, which caused life-threatening injuries.
He was airlifted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital with 30 breaks in his ribs, a punctured lung and seven shattered vertebrae.
“He was only half a millimetre away from severing his spinal cord,” Jade says. “I was on my way to pick the boys up from school when I got the call. It was horrendous.”
Ben needed life-saving surgery and was in hospital for weeks and endured six months of rehabilitation.
“I’ll never forget the moment the doctors said to me, ‘We don’t normally do this operation because most people don’t survive this type of injury’,” Jade says. “But he’s a big tough bastard.
“They told me they had to do the operation, or he’d never walk again, then the doctors said, ‘Bring the kids in to be with him before the operation’, just in case. It’s a miracle Ben’s here and we are always very mindful of that.”
Once Ben was on the mend, works began on the home, starting with the garden, designed by Lee Gray Landscape Design. The space includes an undercover entertaining area (with table tennis table), a large lawn, and a basketball ring and half court, which sits adjacent the new swimming pool. It’s a kid’s paradise.
Next, the home was gutted and the dwelling was built out three metres into what was a double garage.
Jade designed the new floorplan herself, which included creating an open plan kitchen/dining living space, adding a new laundry, two new bathrooms, as well as a butler’s pantry and a study area, all while maintaining the character and beauty of this 1900s villa.
In the master suite Jade flipped the layout – changing what was a tiny walk-in wardrobe and large en suite bathroom to a massive walk-in wardrobe (a necessity for someone who is seriously into fashion) and smaller en suite.
Jade cavassed several builders for the large project who all quoted an 18-month construction period.
“I knew it could be done faster than that, so I found an up-and-coming builder, Peter Kopsaftis from Kopstruct, and brought him on board,” she says. “He hadn’t done anything of this magnitude, but I really wanted to give him a go.
“I had seen some of his work and I just had a gut feel on his work ethic and quality standards and he is just the loveliest guy. We smashed it out in five months, and he and his team were amazing.”
When it came to designing the kitchen, Jade had one person in mind – Stefan Vignogna, who designs bespoke joinery and interiors.
“I had always wanted to work with Stefan and we got along so well, he’s one of my best mates now,” she says.
“We did a collaboration on the kitchen, he designed it and I did all the fixtures and fitting and colour palette, marble and custom lighting.
“My brief to Stefan was I wanted to feel like I was sitting in a sexy Melbourne bar, not a kitchen, so I think he’s nailed it.”
The collaboration went so well that the kitchen won the HIA Best Renovated Kitchen $45,000 to $65,000 award for 2025.
“Stefan and I want to do a house together now.”
The family moved back into the newly renovated home 12 months to the day after Ben’s motorbike accident. Jade says she and Ben sat on the new Globe West couch, opened a bottle of red and cried.
“I think I let 12 months of emotions out that day,” she says. “I get a lump in my throat today just thinking about it because really Ben shouldn’t be here.
“In a really twisted way, we’re both grateful that we went through it. You would never wish anything like this on anyone; however, you do find out who your village is. We had an incredible group of people around us, and I’m so grateful for them, and for Ben. I’m lucky I married my best mate.
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“You just realise what you need in life, what matters and really every day it’s just health and happiness. It’s certainly brought us all closer together.”
Jade’s aim with this renovation was also to create a calm and welcoming environment to share with family and friends. She says she’s thrilled that their home has become the “go-to” for her sons’ mates.
“Also, I know it looks shiny and new but it’s really a bash-and-crash house, it’s lived in hard. I live with three boys.”
As well as flipping properties, Jade has also been laying the groundwork for her latest career pivot. She launched Robran Property Group several years ago, working as a buyer’s agent, but she is currently moving out of the media to work in property full time.
It was a natural progression in many ways given that she has been helping people find homes for years, including AFL players new to SA.
Changes in the local media landscape, such as female news presenters Kate Collins being let go from Channel Nine, have also influenced the 45-year-old’s decision to reinvent herself.
“With some really good, strong women in the industry in South Australia losing their jobs, I just thought, ‘I’ve got to take the power back’, and I’m not getting any younger,” Jade says.
“So, when we should be at our peak, you know I feel I’m at my strongest, I’m my most comfortable in my skin and I guess one of the positives is I actually feel the best I’ve ever felt. So, it’s kind of cruel that you get to that point in your life where you’re feeling freaking amazing, and then you get tapped on the shoulder that there’s no space for you.
“I just refuse to let that happen to me which is why I guess I’ve navigated myself out. But looking back I go, ‘wow’, I’ve met some unbelievable people and done some incredible interviews.” Some of those interviews have included one-one-ones with Princess Mary of Denmark, Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe and tennis greats Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.
“I have been so lucky that I have been offered opportunity after opportunity,” she says. “But I feel like in my own mind, I’ve never hit the heights that I probably should have for the experience that I’ve had. I dreamt of reading the news for people in Adelaide, my hometown. That’s what I would have loved, but that never happened.
“There were talks about it, but in this industry, you get offered the world many times and delivered an atlas.”
Jade, who started her media career as a cadet at Channel 10 in 1999, has worked for all the major networks and covered big events for TV such as the AFL grand final, the Melbourne Cup and the Australian Open.
The sports mad reporter has also worked for Fox Footy, as well as hosted The Crows Show, which is where Ben first saw her on screen and arranged to get her number through a friend.
The duo married in 2008.
“He is so funny, and so caring and really engaged,” she says. “He also has an enormous amount of respect for me, which I really value. We bounce ideas off each other all the time.”
The couple also share common ground given Jade is from one of South Australia’s most revered footy families – her father is Rodney Robran and her late uncle was Barrie Robran, both greats of the SANFL and legends of the North Adelaide Football Club.
In a lovely full circle moment, Jade and Ben’s youngest son Harry was this year picked to play in the Rooster’s under 14 team.
“The night Harry was given his gurnsey at the club, I had to have a quiet moment to myself, I got very emotional,” Jade says. “There is obviously so much history between the club and my family, but this is Harry’s journey and he’s on his own path.”
As she juggles family life with her new career, Jade says she isn’t missing her high-profile media roles.
“I never got into media to be known, to see my face on TV, or to hear my voice on radio or get invited to things,” she says. “I just really love telling stories, and I really love talking to people. It’s pretty simple.
“None of us in the media are curing cancer, we’re not special. We’re just someone sitting behind a microphone and I think you get found out really quickly whether you’re authentic and genuine or not. I like to think I have been able to have longevity in media because I feel like I can connect with people genuinely.”
Home life these says is busy, fun and chaotic, including Ralph the caboodle and George the sausage dog, but Jade remains mindful that “a major life event” really gives a sense of what’s important.
“Ben has a whopping big scar down the middle of his back, I see it every day, and it’s always a reminder to just stop and smell the roses,” she says.
“When Ben was home recovering I would help him get out of bed and shower and get ready for the day, but I had a saying back then which he and I live by now: I would say, ‘I’ll give you five minutes each day to feel sorry for yourself’, then I’d go and have my shower and cry and then we’d both get on with it.
“It was harsh to hear at the time, but it meant for the rest of the day we were positive for us and the boys.”
Being positive is a way of life for this family, with Jade revealing that her mum Liz, who lives in Bali, was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
“We will support her through whatever she needs,” she says. “Like I said, health and happiness are everything.”
This article first appeared in the May 2026 issue of SALIFE magazine.
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